A story is told about an older woman who lived by herself in a very old house. It was a ramshackle house. It was so old, that when you would walk by the side of it, you could actually see the light coming through the boards on the side of the wall. It was dangerously hot in the summer. It was horribly cold in the winter. And she was always getting sick as a result. She was always going to the hospital.
At first, it was thought that she was resourceless. She was living in such poverty. But when you talked to her friends, you would find out that she was actually quite rich. For a variety of reasons, she was petrified of touching the nest eggs for fear that somebody, if she needed it, then it wouldn’t be there. She actually had wealth, but she lived poorly. And as a result, it was killing her. She had it, but she wouldn’t draw on it.
We have access to things, to riches from God, that we often never draw on. We have intimacy with Christ. We have the love and fullness of God. But it has never broken through into our inner being. We live like we’re poor, and it begins to kill us. We act like we have nothing to hope for or to hope in, and, as a result, we never draw on the hope and the riches that are ours in Christ.
Yet, there is so much formative and life-giving power for our lives because of our believed-in futures, i.e., our hope. We hope in the promises of God. We hope in his love for us in Christ. We hope in the power of the gospel. We hope in the length and width and breadth and depth of his love for us. We hope in his wisdom for the paths that our lives takes. We hope in God.
This Sunday, we want to draw on the riches of God and experience the hope that comes from those riches. We’ll be looking at Romans 15:4-13 and look to the God who gives hope. We’ll never live poor again. How could we, when we hope in such riches from our God!
See you Sunday!
Pastor Nate